Selma is one of the oldest cities in the state of Alabama, and one of the problems that comes with an aging city is an aging infrastructure.

The city has seen multiple cave-ins on Water Avenue and Lauderdale Street over the last two years. Some of the cave-ins have been fixed, but the problem seems to move to a different spot.

Mayor George Evans wants to find out what lies beneath Selma’s streets and what can be done to stop future cave-ins from happening by contracting a company to conduct a study.

“The study will produce a complete overview of our city’s condition infrastructure wise with our sewage and storm drainage for the whole city,” Evans said. “It will roughly cover a 22-mile radius.”

Evans said he has a proposal from Goodwyn Mills, but the Selma City Council wants to hear pitches from other companies before they make a final decision on the study.

“It is a project that will be decided on once the council hears some presentations from other companies that are interested in giving us a quote,” Evans said. “We’re going to entertain that, but right now Goodwyn Mills is the only company that has a prepared document.”

Evans said the proposed study from Goodwyn Mills would take an estimated seven to nine months to complete.

“Any time you do a study of underground infrastructure it is a good thing,” said Ray Hogg, the city’s engineering consultant. “You find out where your worst problems are, and it also gives you a document or a plan you can use in the future to seek funding assistance.”

Hogg, who has looked at and studied some of the cave-ins himself, said much of Selma’s infrastructure is more than a century old.

“I think they are going to find the worst problems in the oldest part of the city,” Hogg said. “We’ve found what some people call tunnels, but what they were was back then they didn’t make concrete pipe, but they made bricks.”

Hogg said a lot of infrastructure was made of bricks in the 1800s, and over time the pressure has caused the structures to weaken and collapse like the brick tunnel at the corner of Water Avenue and Church Street that gave away in May.

“Certain parts of the city, kind of in the downtown core and to the east, especially along the railroads, were some of the earliest areas developed,” Hogg said.

While Selma has a lot of aging infrastructure, Hogg said the city is no different that any other city that was built in the 1800s.

“Selma is no different than Montgomery or somewhere like that, that is also an old city,” Hogg said. “We’ve all got aging underground infrastructure, and we just have to see if we can find the solution to fix it.”

Evans said one of the main benefits of a study is the ability to find funding.

“Once you identify a problem there are grants out there that we can apply for,” Evans said. “I think it is going to help us to be able to apply for additional money and funds from different groups to help solve our infrastructure problem.”

The study will also help the city identify which areas need the most work and need to be addressed first.